I was driving to an event last week and realized I hadn’t packed socks. No big deal, saw a big mall with a Macy’s. Easy.
I went into the store and felt like I was entering a ghost town. Not due to customers but I saw NO ONE at six service stations. The entire men’s side of the store was devoid of anyone. I found the sock area disheveled, like someone was supposed to straighten up but was told to “go home – schedule won’t permit overtime.”
I picked out my socks and went to a register – which was empty. I strolled back to china and gifts – empty. Kitchenware? Empty. Back to men’s – there had to be someone.
Sure enough, a woman had flagged down an employee and was being rung up.
The employee greeted me, thanked me for waiting and apologized for the wait. That’s all anyone could expect.
After five minutes of my waiting, she said she couldn’t get the security tag off and would be back. About that time another guy showed up to be rung up behind me. We waited another five minutes. Now I was upset. Wanting to ditch the socks but thinking better of a barefoot speaker I went to the cosmetics counter. “Can you help me?”
“Yes sir,” was the answer. The woman apologized and rang me up. I asked her if this was, as I suspected, common. She admitted it was which really hurt because she had been there forever, was a commissioned salesperson and doesn’t make anything on merch she rings up in other departments. She said the employees are trying to do their best but cutbacks have meant nothing but frustration.
For those of you not sure of the enormity of the problem. Here is their store map, the first floor is 70,000 sq ft. 
We are talking 35,000 sq feet being run by three visible employees!
We’ve heard alot about zombie banks lately. Welcome to the world of Zombie retail.
This store was dead and it didn’t know it; the racks were strewn with closeout merchandise, customers were trying to buy, employees were doing the best with what they could.
By the way, this is NOT one of those slated to be closed.
Terry Lundgren, CEO gets high marks from the media and PR firms for his Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing at the University of Arizona. But how can you say we are developing the new retail leaders because people don’t think it is a noble profession on one hand and treat existing customers and employees this way?
How did Macy’s get this way? A recent story in Marketplace says Macy’s “will reward its executives based on how well the company’s stock performs compared to a pool of 10 competitors.” Also in the article, Burt Flickinger a consumer industry analyst for SRG Insights said, “The department-store sector has been slowly dying for years, and many of the major chains may be dead within a couple quarters. And Macy’s is doing a heroic job to hold on.”
Zombies held on. You want to compete? Look at what you are doing to your customers and employees before stock bonuses or feathering your own nest. Don’t schedule yourself out of existence.
(I’ve written about Macy’s in a couple other posts, most notably about their PR firm here.)
One of this blog’s readers, Paula from San Francisco sent her recent shopping experience to me. ”Today I spilled coffee all over my top and decided to run over to the mall to see if I could find a replacement. My goal was to find a sweater in a basic style, color, not wool (I’m allergic), that fit me , cost less than $90, and that I didn’t hate. And I only had 45 minutes to do it.
